TEANECK — The football game between Demarest and Teaneck high schools was postponed Saturday night because of what township police are calling a “shooting threat.”

Teaneck police said the identity of the person who issued the threat and what the target of the threat was is not clear.

Teaneck school administrators made the police aware of the situation sometime after 5:30 p.m. Principal Dennis Heck and thletic director Todd Sinclair assessed the threat, and Sinclair made the decision to postpone the game.

“This was a credible threat to cause harm to somebody,” Sinclair said. “I felt it was best to halt the game.”

Heck, the school’s former football coach, was notified about the threat at about 6:15 p.m.

He would not comment about the nature of the threat except to call it “credible,” and therefore decided to cancel the game.

“I had to make sure everyone at the stadium was safe,” Heck said by phone.

The game was 15 minutes from kickoff when an announcement was made over the public address system that the game was being postponed. All spectators were cleared from the stands in an orderly fashion as were the cheerleaders and the Demarest band.

Both teams had returned to the locker room following their pregame warm-ups and were informed of the postponement prior to returning to the field.

“Our first concern is for the safety of everyone,” Demarest athletic director Greg Butler said. “Safety is the most important thing here.”

Demarest is still shaken after Viktor Ovsyankin, 71, was killed by lightning on campus as he watched his grandson play on the freshman soccer team.

The Teaneck-Demarest game has been tentatively rescheduled for 1 p.m. today, provided that the police and school can arrange for adequate security at the field as well as the availability of the referees.